


These Boots Are Made For Stomping

by goodboylupin (somebetterwords)



Series: A String of Christmas Lights [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood, Christmas, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28095900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebetterwords/pseuds/goodboylupin
Summary: A trip down memory lane in other people's boots and heels.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: A String of Christmas Lights [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047778
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	These Boots Are Made For Stomping

**Author's Note:**

> For pixelated's [Holiday Prompt List](https://64.media.tumblr.com/6048127888fc57ae1140e21c21a900d1/71eb931f9264e327-57/s540x810/c2f56126b9ac6e66cf383c0d20bb600ecb5e2427.png)
> 
> Beta'ed by [Katt](https://kattlupin.tumblr.com/)

Remus is no expert on children, but in his admittedly limited experience, it is a time honoured tradition for a child of a certain age to play with their parent’s shoes. When Remus was a child, his parents very rarely threw out old shoes, even before the aftermath of the werewolf attack had left their finances in shambles and they _had_ to wear shoes down to the sole — Remus Lupin got to keep his mothers old pumps and apron for when he played House, his father’s boots and a wand-like stick he found out back for when he played Boggart Banisher. Sirius and his little brother had apparently made a game of trying to teeter around on Walburga Black’s six-inch formalwear stilettos, a game which only came to an end when Regulus had lost his balance and upended a table, shattering a cursed vase that left the both of them covered in bright blue boils (and to Walburga’s greater dismay, the left heel of her favourite pair of shoes snapped) just hours before her annual Christmas Eve soiree. James had done it too, Remus knows, because a photo of him roughly age four grinning in sparkly gold heels, wrapped in a heavily sequined sari, face smeared all over in glittery eyeshadow makeup and his mother’s signature carmine red lipstick, had been found unmarred in the entryway of James and Lily’s cottage in Godric’s Hollow.

Remus and Sirius have not yet been able to bring themselves to explore beyond that entrance hall, much less the second floor. Hagrid had told them Harry’s nursery had been largely rubble, and they’d taken his word for it that there was precious little salvageable there. Picture books could be replaced, new toys bought, and he’d already outgrown the clothes he would have had there by the time they thought to ask; perhaps it might have been nice to grab his baby blanket, but it wasn’t worth trodding where Lily’s body had lain.

The Ministry had placed the entire house under a powerful preservation charm, made it a historical landmark to commemorate the last battle of the Great Wizarding War before at last, Voldemort was defeated. Remus and Sirius can, when time has healed them a little more, go back. They can take Harry to pick over the bookshelf where Lily’s muggle novels sit, her handwritten notes and musings crammed into the margins or stuck-on yellow sticky notes. They can take James’s robes, and they might even still smell like him.

Harry will probably have missed out on the childhood fascination with parent’s shoes by then.

_But_ , Remus considers as he watches Harry giggle madly and clomp around in Sirius’s biker boots, lifting his legs up like a can-can dancer with every step because the shoes come up to the tops of his thighs, _maybe that depends on one’s definition of parent._

**Author's Note:**

> Rebloggable on [Tumblr](https://goodboylupin.tumblr.com/post/637599446398615552/these-boots-are-made-for-stomping)


End file.
